The annual AMTC provides up-to-date information on the latest techniques and innovative approaches to air medical practice. Top-notch keynoters and expanded educational offerings make this the air and critical care ground medical transport event not to miss! The conference exhibit hall gives attendees the chance to learn about the newest technology and meet with service providers in the largest trade show for the air and ground medical community.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Minneapolis girl takes on global role in YouTube video

by Tom Crann, Minnesota Public Radio
June 27, 2008
St. Paul, Minn. — A Minneapolis girl plays a big role in one of this year's most popular and talked-about Internet videos.

Posted about a week ago, the film, simply called "Dancing," has nearly three million hits on YouTube alone, and it is featured at many other Internet sites. The film features a 31-year-old computer programmer turned filmmaker doing a goofy dance in just about every imaginable corner of the globe.

Matthew Harding has made similar videos in the past, but the stars of this year's film are actually the hundreds of people he's met in his journeys around the world. The video's haunting soundtrack features the singing of 17-year-old Palbasha Siddique, who lives in Northeast Minneapolis.

Siddique is a native of Bangladesh and sings the song in her native language. It is a translation of the poem "Stream of Life" by Rabindranath Tagore. You can visit the Dancing with the Universe Web site to learn more about Palbasha Siddique and get a translation of the words of her song.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Nightlife back at MOA?

It looks like the Mall of America is finally making moves to restore its fourth floor as a nightlife destination. While the upper level once teemed with restaurants and entertainment, it's now home to just Hooters and a movie theater. The mall has announced a July 16 grand opening for Cantina #1, a Corona-branded restaurant that will go in the old Fat Tuesday's and Knuckleheads locations. The restaurant/bar will feature upscale Mexican food in a cabana-themed setting. More additions are coming, said Maureen Bausch, the mall's vice president of business development. The mall hopes to open a bowling alley/arcade in the old Jillian's space by the end of the summer and renovate the movie theater in the fall, she said

Monday, June 23, 2008

A Downtown Dive Bar

There are more changes coming to the former Harvey's in downtown Minneapolis. The owners recently changed the bar's name to the Ugly Mug, and they're adding another club upstairs. The unused second level is being turned into the water-themed Dive Bar, which will be a sister club to the original in Maplewood. (That Dive Bar was originally T-Birds, for those taking notes.) Ugly Mug co-owner Bob Carlson said bar-goers can expect many of the same aesthetic touches from the Maplewood Dive Bar, including that cool water-encased bar top. He's hoping to have the second level open by the end of the month, pending city permits. Carlson, who also owns the Majors chain and part of Bootleggers, recently helped open a second Bootleggers in Milwaukee. (The Ugly Mug/Dive Bar, 106 N. 3rd St., Mpls. 612-343-5930.)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Spa at the Airport

We'll all want to linger a while longer in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport if plans materialize for a spa for travelers. The airport could have a 5,000-square-foot wellness center in time for September's Republican National Convention. The center is to be part spa--including hair and nail care, plus massage--part medical clinic, with a health practitioner available to diagnoze and treat basic illnesses. Visit http://www.mspairport.com/ for more information.

Start scheduling those October 2008 pre-AMTC manicures now and post AMTC massages before you return home!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

No FAREway Tournament in 2008? How About Miniature Golf Instead?

Art Course
BILL WARD, Star Tribune


Sunlight danced merrily through multihued portholes, dappling the walls of the overturned Chris-Craft Roamer and blurring the task at hand. It's rough trying to execute an exceedingly difficult putt through the constantly shifting focus of other people's recycled bifocals.

It's the sheer ethereal beauty -- so pixilated that one can almost hear Gregorian chants, or at least Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," wafting about the hull -- that makes playing the seventh hole at Big Stone Mini Golf so distracting. Dubbed "Holey Ship" for its cathedral-like ambience, No. 7 is the newest addition to this Minnetrista mini-golf course concocted by local artist Bruce Stillman.

"I've always liked doing landscape sculpture things, wild stuff," Stillman said. "I'm always asking myself how you can do truly functional art. Somehow it came to me to apply the recreation of mini-golf with the sculptures."

So in 2003, Stillman and some fellow artists built a 12-hole miniature-golf course on some land he owns about halfway between Mound and St. Bonifacius. Augmenting his own works -- largely the kind of stainless-steel sculptures that Stillman has been making for 30 years, fetching as much as $50,000 -- are some striking bronze sculptures by Heidi Hoy, including a few nudes that are just abstract enough to keep this all-ages attraction from entering PG-13 territory.

Virtually everything is a work of art, from the slate table with two checkerboards and pumpkin- and dragonfly-shaped benches (kids can perch on the wings) to the steps made of wood, metal, concrete or brick and even the handicapped-parking sign.

On the course itself, odd angles and slopes abound, and the artistic elements might be components, conduits or the hole design itself. There are fossilized tree trunks, a gargantuan metal bowl producing seemingly endless rolls, a pinball-like steel downslope.

Artistic mini-golf courses are not new; the Walker Art Center has operated an artsy mini-golf course the last several summers. The first U.S. course -- built at Pinehurst, N.C., in 1916 -- was designed after the gardens of the Louvre. Actress Mary Pickford opened a Max Ernst-inspired course in Los Angeles.

Steven Hix, executive director of the Fort Worth-based Miniature Golf Association United States, estimates that there are 7,500 mini-golf courses in the nation, down from more than 50,000 in midcentury America. There are only a handful of courses in the Twin Cities area, down from 15 in the early 1990s and nearly 100 in 1960.

With Putt-Putt courses no longer plastered throughout the land, and video golf on the rise, a more visual approach would seem to fit this sport to a tee.

Strokes of genius

The objets d'golf looming about are not the kind of "gallery" one usually finds at a golf course, and Stillman's windmill would hardly fit in a Norman Rockwell painting. But Big Stone exudes the kind of whimsy and, well, wholesomeness that has made miniature golf a big ol' slice of pure Americana for almost a century.

The bucolic setting doesn't hurt. Getting there means a long, lovely drive along Lake Minnetonka, and then suddenly into some seriously rural landscape. Bikers and hikers will be able to get there via the soon-to-open Dakota Line bike path from Wayzata to St. Bonifacius, which runs right alongside the course.

Abutting Gale Woods to the west, Stillman's 17-acre plot houses goats, miniature horses, chickens galore, and the more than occasional egret or heron lounging in the pond just north of the course. On a recent Saturday, Tonka Bay's Tara Bauman, admonishing her daughter Maia, might have been the first person in mini-golf-course history to utter these words: "Don't shriek at the goats; the goats don't like it."

Aside from the petting zones, there are two cool picnic areas on either side of the pond: another old boat ("Kids love going into the cabin and getting behind the steering wheel," Stillman said) and a Stonehenge-like space (mini, of course) with a fire pit.

"It's just really peaceful out here, really artistic, very unique," said Elaine Fiske of Minnetrista, who was watching granddaughters Annelie and Madeline Scolardi of Chanhassen play.

"I like the little golf-course things," said Madeline, "and the boat, and the fish."

Some good-sized koi live in a pond between two holes, and there's fauna as well, scores of sunflowers shooting up along and around the serpentine 10th hole, a legitimate par 4. But the inanimate objects, the greens' friezes, are the stars of this show.

Many holes require major reconnaissance to discern the best approach, and sometimes it's best to just hit the ball and then see how the hole plays out. The final hole ends with the ball on a large concrete slab with running water, the current inching the ball along a maze-like "stream" to the hole, a good 2 minutes after it first splashes down -- and a fitting finale for its creator.

"My sculptures are always slow-moving pieces that are kinda hypnotic," said Stillman, 50. "I always try to have nature do its work."

Bill Ward • 612-673-7643

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Touched by History

KIM ODE, Star Tribune


There are those who make history and are revered with its names and dates and ticker-tape parades. And then there are those whose impact on history is, at most, a glancing blow, a near-miss, a feebly grasped coattail. This would be most of us.

Still, rubbing shoulders with destiny should count for something. In honor of Minnesota's 150th birthday, we asked you to share accounts of your sideways associations with the glories of the state's past. The idea is that we're all a part of Minnesota's lore, darn it -- if we stretch circumstances far enough.

Here are some of the tangential ways in which citizens have been touched by history:

A bachelor godfather
Andrea Blume Tilke's brother's godfather is Dan Ellison, who came up with the idea of creating career jobs to attract women to Herman and so ignited the "Bachelormania" craze in 1994. Ellison, an eligible bachelor, was on "Oprah," in People magazine and was played by Michael O'Keefe in the movie "Herman USA." Tilke lives in Savage.

A ride with Benny
Leah Barnacle's father, John Benson, was the first person to use the state's first drive-through banking lane in November 1963, when Northwestern National Bank asked if it could use Benson's 1911 Maxwell car for the event. The bank's celebrity pitchman, Jack Benny, also owned a Maxwell and rode along as Benson's passenger. Barnacle lives in Wayzata.

A yummy invention
Jodi Schwen says her husband's grandfather, Walter J. Schwen, invented the process to cover a brick of ice cream with chocolate coating, which later was sold and patented to become the Eskimo Pie. Walter was the founder of Schwen's Ice Cream and Candy Co. in Blue Earth. Jodi lives in Brainerd.

All about safety

Two people claimed this link with history: Stephanie Ehlers' father's cousin -- who also is Karen Hanggi's grandfather's aunt -- was Sister Carmela Hanggi, who started the school safety patrol in 1921 while principal of the St. Paul Cathedral School. The first crossing was at Kellogg Boulevard and Summit Avenue. The concept of the school patrol is used by schools in all 50 states. Ehlers lives in St. Paul and Hanggi in Coon Rapids.

Scene of the crime
Myrna Maikkula's cousin's husband was the pastor whom kidnappers called with the information that Virginia Piper was handcuffed and chained to a tree south of Duluth in Jay Cooke State Park in 1972, after having demanded a $1 million ransom. Maikkula also is the city clerk who swore Jesse Ventura into office as mayor of Brooklyn Park, launching his political career. She lives in Brooklyn Park.

A brush with Lindy
Ron Manger's father, Lawrence, and his brother, Dan Doyle, helped Charles Lindbergh push his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, into a hangar at Wold-Chamberlain Field in Minneapolis in 1927. Lindbergh was on a national tour after his famous transatlantic flight. The two young men, bored with the long wait, had driven their Model T to the far end of the airfield where, to their shock, Lindbergh landed to avoid the crowds. Manger lives in Minneapolis.

Good to know her
Lizanne Bristol had her ponytail pulled by Dave Lee on the "Popeye and Pete Show," in 1968, which cued the theme song, "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya." She lives in Prior Lake.

Prettying up Prince
When Pamela Diamond worked at Pipka's Workshop, a folk-art studio in Minneapolis, in 1984, she took an urgent Saturday afternoon call from a musician who needed his guitar hand-painted with flowers and a monarch butterfly -- by Monday. The movie "Purple Rain" came out two weeks later, and Prince used the guitar on his world tour. Diamond lives in Minneapolis.

Saved by a pro
Steven M. Hansen was yanked from Rainy Lake when he was 5 by Bronko Nagurski, one of the best football players of all time. Nagurski, who grew up in International Falls, was staying in the cabin next to the Hansens' in the early 1950s when Steven was blown offshore while on a float board. When his mother called for help, Nagurski came charging out of his cabin and into the water to pull Hansen back to shore. "What made the incident memorable is that Bronko didn't bother to open the screen door on the way out of his cabin," Hansen wrote. "Scared as I was, I remember seeing it fly into the air. Afterwards, my Dad and some other guys stood around looking at the twisted brackets and discussing how to put it back on." Hansen lives in St. Louis Park.

One cool apple
Corey Gideon Gunderson's fourth great-uncle, Peter Miller Gideon, developed the Wealthy apple in 1868, the first apple to survive North America's cold winters. Gideon's farm, near Excelsior, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Gunderson lives in Lakeville.

Studying with a Miller
Mary J. Jasperson's older brother befriended baseball players who stayed at the hotel where he worked, which is why a Minneapolis Millers rookie named Ted Williams was often seen at the family's kitchen table helping Mary with her homework. She now lives in Richfield.

Little wife on the prairie
Mary Jane Hutchinson Petersen's great-grandmother, Electa, married Royal Wilder, the brother of Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband, Almanzo. Petersen lives in Mankato.

High-flying artwork
Nikki DeGidio Wick's father's sister's husband, Charles (Bud) Morgan, helped design Northwest Airlines red tail in 1948 to make downed planes easier to find. Wick lives in Blaine.

Some photo advice
Iris Pahlberg Peterson's father's best friend, Gordon Haga of the Haga Photography Studio in Minneapolis, took the photo of Abigail Van Buren that ran with her Dear Abby advice columns for many years. Peterson lives in Minneapolis.

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185

Monday, June 16, 2008

STELLA'S FISH CAFE

The spot: This Uptown staple has been Minneapolis' most coveted rooftop destination. Luckily, the three-story mega-restaurant can fit a gazillion people on its rooftop, with a picture-perfect view of downtown.

Best seat: "The corner table that overlooks Lagoon Avenue," says owner Bob Carlson. "The downtown skyline is in your view and it's just awesome. It's where we sat Vince Vaughn this past summer."

1400 W. Lake St., Mpls., 612-824-8862

SEVEN SKY BAR

The spot: It's huge, and they've spared no expense. No plastic chairs here -- seating is a mix of cast-aluminum swivel chairs and eye-popping red super sofas. There's a fire pit, pergolas, two granite-top bars and a movie screen. Oh, and downtown's tallest buildings loom overhead.

Best seat: "On one of the red couches in front of the fire pit, where you can see the beautiful skyline and people enjoying themselves," says owner David Koch.

700 Hennepin Av., Mpls., 612-238-7777, 7mpls.com

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Minneapolis Attendee at the AMTC!

http://www.minneapolisattendee.com/page/aams-conference.jsp

Recipe: The Minneapolis Mojito

From the Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS MOJITO
Serves 1.

Otho Restaurant bartender Tony Kauck invented and named this drink, partially because he uses Opulent, a Minnesota-bottled vodka.

• 4 mint leaves

• 2 tsp. sugar

• 3 tbsp. fresh lime juice

• Crushed ice

• 1 1/2 oz. vodka

• Splash of club soda

• 1 mint sprig

Directions

Put mint leaves, sugar and lime juice in a large glass and muddle together. Add crushed ice. Stir in vodka and top off with club soda. Garnish with mint sprig.